Straight-Through Processing (STP) for B2B Virtual Card Payments

Virtual card payments are growing in popularity for B2Bs. They’re convenient for buyers, but for suppliers, they can require some extra effort to accept depending on your payment stack. 

Straight-through processing can help. And while it’s not for everyone, it’s worth understanding to see if it’s a good fit for your business. 

What is Straight-Through Processing?

Straight-through processing (STP) automates virtual card payment acceptance by eliminating manual card entry. 

Instead of a supplier receiving the virtual card number for someone to process manually, the payment gets routed electronically straight to the supplier’s acquirer. From there, the acquirer generates an authorization request on the merchant’s behalf. 

Depending on what STP solution is used, remittance information can also be delivered into the supplier’s AR or ERP workflow.

Note: The general “straight-through processing” term can be a bit broader, and may describe any end-to-end transaction automation in the financial services space. But in the B2B payments context, it generally refers to automating virtual card acceptance (which is what we’re covering here). 

Why Virtual Card Payments Can Still Be Manual Without STP

Virtual cards are digitally-generated numbers that are linked to an underlying funding account. They’re typically configured for a specific transaction or period of use, and they can include controls limiting the payment amount, merchant, timing, or purchase category. 

The payment gets authorized and processed like any other card transaction, but there is no physical card to present.

Virtual cards are most commonly used by businesses to pay suppliers. And while they can be helpful for the payer, they aren’t always the most convenient for the merchant receiving the payment.

Without STP, a supplier receiving a virtual card payment may need to:

1. Open an email with the payment notification
2. Retrieve the virtual card number and expiration details
3. Enter the card number manually into a payment gateway or terminal
4. Locate the invoice associated with the transaction
5. Match the approved payment to one or more open invoices
6. Record the transaction and customer data into an accounting system or ERP software

This is all manageable if your business only receives a handful of virtual card payments every month. But it’s cumbersome and genuinely expensive if you’re a wholesaler, manufacturer, or professional services firm that processes hundreds or thousands of these cards. 

According to Mastercard, 42% of US suppliers say that manual processing and reconciliation are the top barriers to accepting virtual card payments. 

What STP Automates for the Merchant

Manual Card Entry: Virtual card numbers are delivered to the merchant’s acquirer instead of an employee who needs to copy the number or key it manually into a terminal or gateway. 

Authorization: The authorization request gets generated on the merchant’s behalf, so each virtual transaction doesn’t need to be initiated separately after the card details are received. 

Invoice Reconciliation: Certain STP solutions, like Mastercard’s receivables products can deliver customer information that integrate with ERP and AR systems. Mastercard Receivables Manager can also match payment info directly to open invoices. 

Handling Card Credentials: Card networks, banks, and payment providers handle all of the virtual card numbers, which removes the burden from the merchant to safely and securely store it.

Does STP Lower Your Credit Card Processing Fees?

Sometimes, but not always directly. It depends on who issued the card and the network.

When a supplier accepts a virtual card through STP, the underlying payment is still a commercial card transaction. So all applicable interchange fees, card-brand assessments, and processor markups still apply. 

Visa has a separate Straight Through Processing Fee program, which does offer lower interchange rates compared to other commercial transaction categories depending on the sale amount. It’s tiered based on transaction size:

• Tier 1 – Less than $7,000 — 2.00% + $0.10
• Tier 2 – $7,000 to $14,999.99 — 1.30% + $35
• Tier 3 – $15,000 to $49,999.99 — 1.10% + $35
• Tier 4 – $50,000 to $99,999.99 — 0.95% + $35
• Tier 5 – $100,000 or more — $0.80% + $35

But not every card network has separate interchange categories for STP. So for virtual cards that aren’t going through Visa’s network, those transactions will be routed to a standard commercial interchange category. 

The main cost impact of using STP is mostly operational. It’s less manual work, fewer errors related to data entry, and less time spent trying to post and reconcile virtual card payments. 

Mastercard’s STP Products Explained

Despite not having a dedicated interchange fee program for STP, Mastercard has several products in this space. They’re often confused with each other, so here’s what each one actually does:

• Mastercard Straight Through Processing: This is the core development product offered as part of Mastercard’s In Control for Commercial Payments platform (but usable independently). It routes virtual card payments directly to the supplier’s acquirer for automated processing without manual card entry.
• Mastercard Receivables Manager: Broader AR automation product that launched back in July 2023 before becoming globally available in July 2025. It captures virtual card details from payment emails, processes transactions automatically, and delivers data to an integrated ERP. 
• Commercial Direct Payments: Introduced in July 2025, this is a card-network-agnostic solution that connects issuers and acquirers through Mastercard. It automatically processes payments and deposits funds while pushing remittance data directly into the supplier’s AR workflow. 

Mastercard explicitly describes both Receivables Manager and Commercial Payments as card-network-agnostic, meaning they’re designed to handle virtual payments across all networks (not only Mastercard-branded cards). 

The core STP developer product operates within Mastercard’s own gateway infrastructure, so that claim doesn’t automatically apply.

So just make sure you don’t assume that “Mastercard STP” refers to one universal product. Confirm with your processor which solution they offer, which networks and issuers are supported, and what payment formats the platform can handle. 

Who is STP Actually For?

STP for virtual card acceptance is truthfully not something that most businesses need to be thinking about. It’s exclusively for B2B merchants, and even within the B2B category, it only makes sense if you’re getting a high volume of virtual card payments.

We typically see it for:

• Manufacturers
• Distributors
• Logistics companies
• Healthcare organizations
• Insurance providers
• Software vendors
• Enterprise suppliers

And within those industries, it’s worth considering STP if at least a few of the following elements apply to your current AR:

• Business customers regularly pay invoices with virtual cards
• Employees are manually retrieving and entering card credentials 
• Virtual card payments frequently cover multiple invoices
• Your AR department spends a lot of time matching payments to invoices
• Payment information arrives in different email or file formats from different buyers
• Virtual card volume is growing faster than your team can process it.

That said, there’s a good chance STP continues trending up in the coming years. As adoption grows for payers, merchants accepting those card payments will have more of a need for STP.

I’d estimate that by 2030, this will be relevant for a lot more businesses than it is right now. So it’s a good idea to keep an eye on this, even if it doesn’t necessarily apply to your business today. 

How Merchants Access STP

Businesses can’t just activate STP on their own. Access runs through the merchant’s acquirer, processor, or payment provider. And it’s dependent on that acquirer’s participation in the STP infrastructure. 

So if it sounds like STP is something you’re interested in, then you need to talk to your current processor about it. 

The name of the product they’re offering you matters a lot less than whether it can handle your actual payment volume. 

Final Thoughts

Straight-through processing is one of those things that sounds more complicated than it actually is. It’s basically just a way for virtual card payments to get processed without anyone on your team having to touch it. 

The bigger thing to understand is that “STP” isn’t just a single product. This is a category within the payments space, and not every processor has the ability to offer every STP solution. Mastercard alone has three distinct STP offerings, and they all work differently. 

So just make sure you’re asking your processor the right questions before assuming your current setup supports it. Otherwise, you’ll end up paying extra for a VAS that doesn’t actually add any value to your business.